This is a summary for the course Interaction Analysis for the study program 'International Business Communication (CIW)' at the Radboud University. With this summary, I got an 8.7 on my exam.
Part 1: Theory, Method and Data for Conversation
Analysis
Chapter 1 – Introduction to the study of conversation analysis.
Conversation analysis makes it it’s business to study how participants create different
interactions and how they conduct themselves in these interactions. Originally, linguists
were focused on rules for constructing and pronouncing words and sentences, they would
not look at the study of interaction. Conversation analysis has been developed, not looking
at the construction of language per se, but on how people create coherent interactions
through verbal and non-verbal cues. Technology mediated interaction is also a part of
conversation analysis.
Ordinary conversation refers to a conversation between people, that isn’t specifically work
or task oriented. Conversation analysts find that the construction of these ordinary
conversations can provide a basis for the organization of talk in all other kinds of
interactions. According to Drew and Heritage (1992) this is the case because it is the most
basic, primary form of communication. It is also the form of communication that a child is
first exposed to.
Interaction is a big part of todays workplace, for some jobs it may even be the primary part
of the job (for example a principal of a school was examined, and it was found that he mostly
runs the school by talking to his employees). Even for jobs where talks seems minimal, it’s a
bigger part than we might think. There are other examples of interactionaly skilled
employees being more effective thanks to that skill, take how journalists share information
that might be of interest to another as an example (calling out a story, so that a journalist
that might be interested can react while the others can keep working).
Chapter 2 – Understanding Ethnomethodology
Ethnomethodology states that social structure is a cultural concept, and therefor is created
by the people. Ethnomethodologists investigate how this is done by studying how people
make “social facts, social structure and social order”.
Ethnomethodology is a theory and a method of research. As a theory it states that when
humans act, they do so with an understanding of the social context they’re in.
Ethnomethodology is different from other culture studies mainly in its method: breaching
experiments. The goal is discovering methods, procedures and background assumptions
people use to accomplish any aspect of social life.
In short, EM provides a way of studying peoples methods of creating social order, structure
and action. Since most aspects of society are created with talk, this is a very important part
of EM.
Indexicality: the observation that the meaning of words doesn’t come from the words
themselves, but the context and common sense surrounding these words.
Breaching experiments show that when someone acts out of order, a emotional response
often follows. This points to the fact that not just the communication suffers when we don’t
adhere to the “norms”, but the perception of the person not adhering to the norm suffers as
well. People will however try to normalize weird things.
Documentary method of interpretation assumes that an action has an underlying pattern,
we then use this pattern to make sense of the action.
,“Doing being ordinary”:
1. Use an appropriate amount of detail
2. Construct an “accountable” (logical) story
3. Construct a story that reflects the tellers rela to the events (for example an ethnic
joke can be told by someone with that ethnicity)
4. Tell the story at an appropriate time
Chapter 3
Conversation analysis came out of ethnomethodology and is now used by many disciplines
and is used to study multiple institutional settings. The method of conversation analysis is as
follows:
- Have a recording of an interaction that is transcribed using a detailed library of
symbols.
- Study individual interactions or collections of related excerpts from a range of
interactions.
- Search for patterns by analyzing actions and reactions.
Early research looked at the organization of an interaction: how do participants for example
take turns or ask questions. Sacks argued that conversations should be analysed with the
question: “Why that now?”. The goal according to him should be to find the “grammar” of
conversation, the procedures people use to organize talk.
Sacks also argues that this should be studied by examining actual conversation, as even
though the social world seems incredibly complex when examined closely there is in fact a
lot of order. The reason we shouldn’t hypothesize is that the social world is too complex for
our imaginations. Because talk is orderly for participants, it is also orderly for an analyst.
Content of talk cannot be taken apart from how the talk is conducted in conversation
analysis. It is not the analysts job to make inferences about the feelings or thoughts of an
interactant, but purely the actions.
Chapter 4: Preparing the data: Transcription practices.
Basic transcription conventions:
- .hh / hh = inhalations and exhalations
- Ta::lk = drawn out syllable
- That- = word was cut off abruptly
- Lot = stress/emphasis
- YOU = increased volume
- °cost° = decreased volume
- (1.4) = Pause in seconds
- (talk) = tentative descriptions
- ( ) = non transcribable talk
- Punctuation = not grammatical, but intonation
- Laughter = as pronounced (heh, hunh)
- [] = overlap
- (= =) = word placed immediately after another
- “thuh” = words are spelled as they’re pronounced
Why would you transcribe these types of things?
Hesitations and pauses
, Hesitation markers/filled pauses (“uh”) show an analyst that a speaker is trying to repair an
error or avoid an error, in other words they are editing their utterance while they speak. In
some situations, inferences can be made off of hesitations, making a hesitation part of the
information (a jury could use this in a trial e.g.). Assumptions about for example the
definition of the social situation given by the speaker can then be made based off of these
hesitations/repairs.
Laughter
Very often, things like coughs or laughter aren’t transcribed as they sound, but by explaining
the action in brackets: (both laugh). However, more detail can be found when literally
transcribing the sounds. An example of extra information this gives is who laughs first: often
the speaker laughs first, giving an invitation to laugh to the listeners. How the laughter
begins is another piece of information, for example it could begin with ambiguous laughter
like an exhalation. That could signal that the laugher is waiting to see the response to this
ambiguous laughter before bursting out into clear laughter. Volume and sound are other,
obvious information points given.
Transcribing audible breaths and simultaneous speech
Audible breaths can be relevant seeing not all breaths are audible. Therefor there can be
information hidden in the breaths that are audible (for example a sigh). An audible
inhalation can also signal that someone wants to start talking, often there are more
indications for this in a transcript.
Chapter 5: The turn taking system
There are grammatical units of a variety of different lengths.
- Single word as a turn
Turn transition is relevant at the end of a possible complete unit. That can simply be “yeah”
for example.
- Complete sentence as a turn
Based on intonation and timing, you can project if a speaker is reaching the end of his
sentence. You can also complete a sentence based on the words uttered (for example “I’m a
graduate student”, after the word graduate you can already complete the sentence. Speech
overlap often happens at this point, because the listener can complete the speakers
sentence in his head so a reaction can be given.
- Phrase of sentence fragment as a turn
In written language using a part of a sentence is unacceptable. However in spoken language
it is common if you can do it based on context (“This was the longest three minutes of my
life” “Mine too”)
When a turn is over is based on the conversational context, listeners can analyse a speakers
utterance while it’s happening and project when and/or how it will be completed.
Everything discussed above is relevant when two interactors are at play. However if there
are more, what or who decides who gets to speak? That is called turn allocation.
A speaker can select a different speaker, of themselves as the next speaker. They can also
not select a next speaker, giving space for the others to claim the place as speaker.
- Current speaker selects next
o This often happens through a question. Could be by directly naming someone,
using bodylanguage like a point or a gaze or through an utterance that
reasonably could only be answered by one of the potential speakers.
- Next speaker selects self
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